Chapter 31: Acted Like Pretentious Pricks and Got Slapped in the Face
Chapter 31: Acted Like Pretentious Pricks and Got Slapped in the Face
“Uncle, excuse me, may I ask whether there are wild animals strolling around this hill?” Tang Xiu respectfully asked a farmer at Walled Hill Village’s foot.
“Do you want to eat game meat? There are a lot of wild games on the hill. On the ground, you can find pheasants, hares, and wild boars. In midstream, you can find wild turtles, alligators, and giant salamanders. You can find more for flying games.” The old farmer inhaled his tobacco pipe and spat out a thick smoke as he answered leisurely.
Having heard the old man’s words, it made Tang Xiu overjoyed. The locals sure are the ones more familiar with the situation in the surroundings. He had spent half a night in the hilltop and couldn’t find anything. He didn’t expect to get such a big harvest by asking the locals.
After Tang Xiu asked where to find these wild animals, the old farmer took a long sigh, “But alas, that was the situation in a few years ago. Because there are too many people hunting the wild animals in this hill, they scared them away, and now there only a few of them on the hill. Even if there are some, people can’t find any traces of them now…”
The old farmer’s words were just like cold water from the sky, making Tang Xiu’s heart turn cold. The smile that just emerged on his face instantly vanished.
After having said goodbye politely to the old farmer, Tang Xiu started asking the other locals.
But he didn’t expect that even though he had asked a dozen of farmers on hill’s foot village, he didn’t get the answers he wanted, causing him to nearly fall into despair. If even the locals hadn’t heard of any rumors about fierce beasts here, didn’t this mean that Walled Hill Village really didn’t have any fierce beasts?
Tang Xiu was a perfectionist in nature. He had always been pursuing everything to perfection and reached the ultimate peak. He didn’t find any traces of fierce beasts last night, which meant that the Body Refining Liquid he wanted to concoct lacked one last ingredient. He didn’t want to accept this fact and finally decided to leave a note to ask for a leave, as he left school in the afternoon and visited Walled Hill Village again.
Since he didn’t get any useful information from the farmers in the village at the hill’s foot, Tang Xiu directly headed straight to the hilltop and explored the hill by himself.
Steep overhanging cliffs surrounded Walled Hill Village. It was more than 500 meters above sea level and 200 meters above flat ground. The high terrain was surrounded by different raised flat lands, giving off the feeling of a terraced mountain. This kind of terrain was extremely rare in the Shuangqing Province.
Zhang Xianzhong once occupied Walled Hill Village and declared himself king of this place. He built the city walls, city gates, as well as constructed the Li Family Ancestral Hall, the fence split stone, official buildings, a fort, The Goddess of Mercy Temple, and other buildings. Therefore, the hill had a winding and complicated path all the way to the top.
However, because the path was too winding and long, Tang Xiu didn’t traverse along the road but chose to climb up the hill.
Along the way, Tang Xiu saw a few turtledoves in the depths of the wood. He was also almost bit by vipers and scorpions, which could make other people overjoyed when they saw them.
Unfortunately, the one that Tang Xiu wanted to find were fierce beasts, rather than sate his appetite for game meat. So these wild animals didn’t interest him in the slightest bit.
Half an hour later, Tang Xiu successfully climbed to the top with a few turtles, hares, and a dozen of snakes. His schoolbag was also filled up with scorpions and a variety of rare and precious medicinal herbs.
At first, Tang Xiu didn’t plan to hunt the games on the hill, but since he thought about his family’s restaurant and his mother’s malnourished body, he took and carried these games although he didn’t need them. He just conveniently hunted the wild animals he could see.
“Hey kid, you’re good. The five of us could only hunt 2 rabbits, but you actually caught a lot of turtles and snakes?”
“Kid, how about you sell those games in your hand? Say the price, we’ll buy all of them!”
“Kid, from your clothes, you must be one of the locals. Give us the games, we’ll buy it!”
****
When Tang Xiu had just stood and straightened up his body, 5 people surrounded him and looked at the turtles and vipers in his hands with hot and boiling eyes, the only things that they didn’t do yet was rob them from his hands.
Upon seeing that Tang Xiu climbed up from under the overhanging cliff and didn’t seem to have a car, these people subconsciously thought that Tang Xiu was one of the local farmers that hunted games in the hill for pocket money, and talked to him with an arrogant manner and words. They looked at Tang Xiu in a condescending manner and didn’t even have the slightest respect for him.
“I’m sorry, but these games are for my humble home. I can’t sell them to you.” Tang Xiu faintly glanced at the 5 people that surrounded him and didn’t hesitate to refuse.
Tang Xiu could clearly see 3 cars off-road—the all-terrain vehicles parked near the roadside. The Wrangler, the Land Rover, and the Mercedes-Benz. Thus, it could be seen that these people were wealthy and had high statuses. Tang Xiu didn’t want to provoke them and simply cut off their words as to not to tangle him again.
However, Tang Xiu underestimated these people’s determination to get his game.
“Hey boy, how much do you sell these games to others for? We’ll double the price. Name your price and we’ll pay you!” A young man in a flowered pattern shirt stared at Tang Xiu and spoke confidently.
“A man must keep his own words. Even if you give me a lot of cash, I will not sell these games to you!” Upon seeing the flowered pattern shirt’s youth’s gaze that it was just like he wanted to eat him, Tang Xiu subconsciously knitted his brows and frowned, “Please make way, I’m going down the hill.”
Previously, Tang Xiu also intended to practice in the Spiritual Vein in this place for a while, but since the vein’s spot was being occupied, he gave up the thought and planned to do it another day.
“Oh, we’ll only buy some then, and you can take the rest to your home. And we’ll also buy it from you for a high price, so you can make money as well as keep your words to your family.” The youth in the flowered pattern shirt gave his advice and smiled.
Having heard the youth’s reasoning, as well as he didn’t want to get pestered anymore by these people, Tang Xiu was about to nod and comply with him.
But a rude voice interrupted him when he was about to nod, “Xue Renfei, you’ve been getting more and more boring lately. Why must you haggle with this dirty kid? It’s just some games, we don’t need to pay it, just take it from him!”
The one who was talking was a guy with a fierce-looking face and with 1.9 meters in height, looking like an iron tower.
“Zhang Yongjin is right. The whole Walled Hill Village is ours. Let alone these games, even though he doesn’t want to, he must hand over those games to us.”
“Hey kid, those turtles are protected animals by the State’s laws. It’s illegal to catch them. Do you want us to drag you out to the police station?”
****
The other three youths burst into loud laughter along with the towering Zhang Yongjin’s speech, whilst also looking at Tang Xiu with a ridiculing expression. They wanted to see how Tang Xiu dealt with the current situation.
Xue Renfei turned silent instantly, he obviously didn’t expect that his companions would choose to threaten and intimidate Tang Xiu, since he usually had always been using money to resolve the problems silently.
But Xue Renfei didn’t interfere with his companions’ pleasure since he had given this peasant youth a chance. It was him that didn’t cherish the opportunity.
“You think doing this is very interesting, don’t you?” When Xue Renfei and his gang thought that this peasant youth would be scared shitless, the youth unexpectedly sized them up one by one and revealed a teasing smile.
“Y-y-you… what the fuck are you talking about?” Zhang Yongjin was so dumbfounded that even his voice stuck up when he saw that this peasant youth was not acting according to the scenario in their imagination.
The others also stared with a dumbstruck expression as they looked at each other and didn’t seem to grasp the way the matter went.
“I just think that you all are doing this out of boredom.” Tang Xiu smiled and explained in a soft voice, “First of all, robbing from others is wrong; much less that you might not be able to snatch these games from me. Secondly, you didn’t need to scare me by taking me to the police station. I also know some people there. Finally, Walled Hill Village belongs to the State, it’s not yours yet. Only after you got the development rights can you have the rights to say those words.”
Tang Xiu calmly left after speaking these words.
Only until Tang Xiu’s shadow disappeared did Xue Renfei, Zhang Yongjin, and the others react to what had happened.
“Holy sh*t!!! What the f**k was that? Did we just literally get slapped?”
“This won’t do, weren’t the ones who were oppressing him, us? How could kids these days be so brash and wild?”
“Hell no!!! I can’t take his tone. I don’t believe I can’t teach this country bumpkin bastard a lesson.”
****
Some of them bursted and roared in rage as they rushed to board the cars and wanted to give an unforgettable lesson for a lifetime to Tang Xiu.
After having chased him for a few minutes and not even seeing Tang Xiu, Xue Renfei and his gang then realized that the one that they were after was on foot. They also remembered that they were strolling around the hill on foot and only got a poor harvest before Tang Xiu slapped them with his words. Having lost interest to continue hunting, they roared curses in their talks while walking down the hill.
As the few cars gradually disappeared on the winding road, a figure then jumped down from a pine tree on the hilltop.
Tang Xiu had not really left and walked down the hill, but he headed toward a remote corner to hide.
At first, Tang Xiu intended to temporarily leave the hilltop and come back another day. But when he accidentally saw the weary looks from Xue Renfei and his gang’s faces, he concluded that they had stayed too long on the hilltop, so he gave up his plan to leave the hill.
Tang Xiu especially asked for a leave of absence for a day because he wanted to completely explore Walled Hill Village. Naturally, he didn’t want to return empty handed.
“This is too much, he requested a leave in this crucial time, and didn’t ask permission from me and just ran away? Isn’t this the same as ditching school?” While Tang Xiu was leisurely exploring Walled Hill Village, Han Qingwu was almost raging in anger when she snatched the leave of absence slip from Yuan Chuling.
“Yuan Chuling, you’re his good friend! How can you let him do this irresponsible thing? Why didn’t you prevent and advise him before…” While condemning Tang Xiu’s bad behavior, Han Qingwu quickly pointed her muzzle toward Yuan Chuling, as if it was Yuan Chuling who was inciting Tang Xiu to ditch school.
Had it been Hu Qiusheng who dared to yell at him like this, Yuan Chuling would have scolded back and directly left. But facing Han Qingwu’s indictment, Yuan Chuling was just like a primary school student who had just made mistakes and was afraid to even breathe.
“Teacher Han, you cannot blame Yuan Chuling for this. Tang Xiu only left the absence slip and ran away. He didn’t even give us the chance to speak.” Seeing the class-in-charge teacher reprimand Yuan Chuling and seemingly wouldn’t stop even after half a day, Cheng Yannan reminded with a soft voice from the side.
Actually, Tang Xiu had already suspected that his leave would push the consequences to Yuan Chuling, so he gave his leave of absence slip directly to Cheng Yannan and asked her to give it to the class-in-charge teacher. However, Cheng Yannan thought that Tang Xiu was only joking to her, and then gave the slip to Yuan Chuling.
When Han Qingwu had just entered the classroom, the insufficient-nerves-brainless Yuan Chuling gave it directly to Han Qingwu, and then dragged himself into a devastating storm cast by Han Qingwu.